Colorblind
by MacyBearLovesJONAS
Summary: They brought so many new colors into each other's lives without even knowing it...
1. Feelin' Blue

_**A/N: Hi! This is my first Skip Beat! fic so I hope you'll be a little gentle with me. **_

_**This is completely and utterly RenXKyoko... with a healthy helping of Sho bashing in the horizon... so... enjoy! :)**_

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**Feelin' Blue**

You could theoretically call it an ordinary day at LME, but then, everyone who knew about LME, knew that no day was ordinary at the biggest and most famous talent management company in Japan. What with the biggest stars this side of Hollywood, a flamboyant president who was into cosplaying and a trio of up and coming stars clad in brain burningly pink jumpsuits rushing around to complete the president's latest whim... Christmas in June.

Granted, this year's summer had been extra scorching but that didn't mean that LME had to celebrate the fact with a Christmas themed week, complete with secret Santa, elves, Father Christmas and real snow. Right... Real snow inside a building in the middle of Tokyo... in summer.

Mogami Kyoko, or Love Me Number 1 as she was otherwise known to the president, should've been right on top of that ninth cloud that morning, doing something she loved to do... but for some reason, she wasn't. Trimming the giant Christmas tree in the lobby of the agency almost mindlessly, Kyoko couldn't help but let out a little sigh as she lifted yet another huge tree ornament, this one shaped like a silver bell the size of her head, so that Chiori could hang it from one of the higher branches.

Normally, in the presence of tinsel, glitter, shiny things and the spirit of Christmas, Kyoko would've been out of her mind with joy, her normally big golden eyes huge and shining in her face. She would've been busy chatting with the tiny spirits of nature in the tree, the elves and other assorted ethereal beings that most normal people couldn't really see, and she would've been one of the happiest people in the agency, if not the city... she just was that kind of a person.

But for some reason, Kyoko found herself unable to really enjoy the Christmas spirit, as out of season as it was. And the real problem for her was that she knew exactly what that reason was... one 6 foot 2 inch godlike actor named Tsuruga Ren. Rather, the lack of the aforementioned godlike presence was the problem.

Yashiro-san had mentioned earlier that week that Re - Tsuruga-san was going to be in China for about two weeks, filming a movie. While it had registered in Kyoko's mind, it hadn't really sunk in that her sempai wouldn't be around for that period of time. Lately, ever since their stint playing Cain and Setsu Heel, Kyoko had found a weird part of her personality come out whenever Re - Tsuruga-san was around. It was like Setsu in the fact that that part of her seemed to have particularly strong feelings for the man in front of her but not like Setsuka in the way that she recognized him to be Tsuruga Ren, the greatest actor of his generation and not her Cain nii-san.

Whenever Tsuruga-san was near her, she'd started to feel the compulsive need to stand just that bit closer to him, keep him around for just a bit longer. Touches, small and unobtrusive ones to be fair, but touches nonetheless, were becoming more common between them now that they had grown so comfortable around each other physically. His slight but warm touch on her lower back as he guided her to her seat on the table at L.A hearts, the LME cafeteria or his hand reaching for hers when she fell... she was slightly different now, but still the originally ungraceful Kyoko mostly.

She could be endlessly graceful and project a strong personality when she was in character,like Natsu or Setsu. But out of it, Mogami Kyoko was still the same. She still retained her child like innocence, her strong views on justice, her inability to lie, her tenuous control on her emotions and her lack of any sort of artifice... all that had made up the naive but strong Mogami Kyoko, were still there, even after having been in the entertainment industry for almost four years now.

But right now, right at that moment, the overriding emotion that dominated her mentalscape was that of... what was it... loneliness? disappointment?... even she didn't know just what it was she felt. She couldn't be feeling lonely... she had Moko-san, Amamiya-san, Maria-chan, Sawara-san, even the shachou was there for her. But somehow, she did feel as if she was a bit alone. Even while she was with her friends, Kyoko wouldn't help but feel a bit down. Something that Moko-san seemed to notice, but had uncharacteristically refrained from reacting to in any way other than frowning a bit and muttering under her breath about decapitating someone's good looking head if he hurt her.

Kyoko hadn't known just how much she missed him till he wasn't there. Everyday, he would find some way to come to the Love Me offices and meet her. His soft smile, the one she knew he saved especially for her, his big but gentle hands, the soft and silky brunette hair that fell artlessly but so perectly over his forehead, the tall and strong build that gave her strength just by looking at him, the safety she felt when she knew he was there, the warmth of his chocolate brown eyes... everything. She missed everything related to him. And she missed all of it so much that it felt like a dull ache inside her chest.

This was the first time Tsuruga-san was out of the country after their stint as Cain and Setsu and Kyoko was finding it quite difficult to understand just what was wrong with her. She was just... feeling so... there was no other word for it... blue.

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_**A/N: Okay... I know that was quite short, but I'll be back soon with the next chapter... Feelin' Green, complete with a jealous Kyoko involved.**_

_**Please don't hesitate to send me your feedback... anything, even flames are acceptable. I would love to hear from you guys... :)**_

_**Oh and I am not Japanese, so please forgive me if I make some mistakes :)**_

_**Ja ne!**_

_**xxoo**_

_**MB**_


	2. Feelin' Green

_**A/N: Okayyy... I am back with the next chapter. Thanks to all the amazing people who favorited, placed alerts and reviewed. You guys made my day! :)**_

_**So without much further ado, here's**_

_**Oh wait. Sorry I forgot to do this in the last chapter.  
**_

_**Standard disclaimer applies... I don't own anything you recognize. Maybe just Oshida Miyuki... but I dont know if I want to own her... :\**_

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**Feelin' Green**

Two weeks had passed since the Christmas in June debacle at LME... and a debacle it had been. While the president had an amazingly talented team of people, not even they could handle having real snow inside a building in central Tokyo, in the middle of summer. Three days after his brilliant idea had been brought to fruition by the engineers at LME, the maintenance crew had had a gargantuan job of cleaning up the mess left behind, which was big enough that president Takarada had actually given a thought to shutting down the building for a whole day.

Fortunately, it hadn't really come to that, and unfortunately, the Love Me section had been drafted into helping clean up the mess by the maintenance department. This meant wet, dirty and messy work for three whole days and Kyoko for one, was happy that that was done. It wasn't the worst job she'd been given in her life, she'd had to do worse at the Fuwa inn at Kyoto and during the time she lived with Sho. But Kyoko knew that while she didn't have too many problems with the job, Moko-san and Amamiya-san were both quite unhappy with their newest Love Me assignment and for their sake, if not for hers alone, Kyoko wanted to get the job done as soon as she could.

But that was the story of the past and it was now almost two weeks after, and things were kinda back to normal. Kyoko was now part of a new romance and action drama called Arrest Warrant, playing a female detective who was the main male lead's partner at the police station. The story was a crime drama, where the male lead, played by who else, Tsuruga Ren, fell in love with a suspect when they busted a drug ring. The detective Mido Gin, who had been a straight forward and honest cop till that date, would break the law to protect the woman he had fallen in love with. Kyoko had to play the character of Kisaragi Reina, Gin's beautiful but tough partner who had secretly been in love with him for a long time.

The role of Reina was quite a difficult one to portray. She was a young woman, but still very much respected by her peers for her work ethics and bravery. She was very straight forward, but she hadn't revealed her feelings to her partner. Reina was a very tough woman, but she literally melted when it came to Mido Gin. And after she found out that Gin was in love with another woman, a suspect at that, Reina's character goes through a lot of shades, where she wrestles with the desire to stay true to her job and helping her partner. Also, there is the instinctive distrust and dislike she develops for the woman Gin is in love with, which also leads to tension between the two of them.

It was one of the more grown up roles that Kyoko had been offered and had also involved quite a bit of background work for her. Kyoko and Ren, both had undergone specific weapons and martial arts training, an intensive three months of physical training, where she'd had to muscle up considerably and a submersion period, when Kyoko had shadowed a real female detective for about a week to get the finer details of her personality and behavior down pat for the character she was about to essay.

Kyoko had been very happy about getting to portray Reina, a tough but fair cop with a soft heart. But that had been only till Oshida Miyuki had come into the picture. Oshida-san was the actress who played Lin Erica, a spoiled rich girl who had gotten involved in drugs and was an addict who had been found at the site of a drug bust by the Tokyo police. She was the one Gin fell in love with and while she liked the man in general, Erica was only trying to use her influence over the handsome policeman to get away with it. And while Oshida-san was a good actress, you could literally see the little hearts in her eyes every time she looked at Ren.

While Oshida-san appeared to be a nice and friendly person, she hadn't warmed up to Kyoko like everybody else did. Kyoko couldn't really figure out why the actress didn't seem to like her, but there was nothing she could do about it. Tsuruga-san was as always unfailingly polite with all his co-stars, his acting as perfect as always, and Kyoko knew that the only thing that was stopping her from enjoying her job was the presence of Oshida Miyuki.

Oshida-san was a self-proclaimed Tsuruga Ren fan and you could almost see her eyes turning into little hearts whenever she looked at him off the set. On the set, she managed to maintain a professional facade, only slipping up some times during the more romantic scenes, but off set, Oshida-san would try every way to flirt with Ren. Every time, they got a break or went for lunch, she would take up the seat next to him, trying to monopolize Tsuruga-san's time and company.

And then there was her behavior. She spent half the day looking at him coyly from under her lashes, the other half standing or sitting next to him, touching his arm or his shoulder in supposedly innocent gestures. Why she didn't know, but all of these things riled her up to no end. Usually, at the end of filming, Kyoko would need at least another hour to wind down and bring her temper back to normal. It was almost as if Reina's character had taken hold of her and was unwilling to give up.

Of course, due to the natural tension between Oshida-san and Kyoko, the scenes between them were really explosive, the acting of both the actresses praised. The scenes Oshida-san had with Ren were the ones that had the most problems, but Ren being the top-notch professional he was, had managed to coax the love-struck actress to give a better than decent performance.

But the highlight of the filming had been the scenes that Ren and Kyoko had shot. When the director called them to action, they were no longer Ren and Kyoko... only Gin and Reina remained. Both of them being method actors, they liked to literally become the character they were portraying. While Kyoko's descent into her character was quite obvious to all around her, Ren's morphing into character was a lot more controlled and hence, the only people aware of his method of acting were Yashiro, Kyoko and the director he was working under.

But one thing neither of them had disclosed to each other during the course of the movie was that these particular roles had given the two actors extremely valuable insights into their own lives. Ren had finally started looking past the barrier that he had put in the way of a relationship with Kyoko. Reina and Gin's relationship was that of two equals... not a sempai and kohai in any way, and Ren was finally starting to look at Kyoko as something more than a high school girl. He had always known that she was a scarily talented actress... that had never been under question. What had kept his hands tied, was the fact that while she was indeed only four years younger than him, she had managed to retain an innocence, an almost childish quality that he had witnessed in her six year old form.

Every time he would decide to let her know of his feelings, flashes of her innocent six year old face and thoughts of how, while she'd been hurt and closed herself off to love, she still managed to remain the pure hearted, happy creature would flood his brain and he would back off... after all, why would such a pure and happy soul want to attach herself to something as black hearted and violent as himself.

But now, seeing her essay one of the most complex and matured roles of her already illustrious career, Ren had had to agree that she had grown, had matured beyond his imagination. He had even told the president one day that the day when Mogami-san surpassed him in acting was not too far away and that he would eagerly wait for that day to come.

On the other hand, Kyoko's revelation, or rather, the glimmer of a revelation dealt more with the way Reina just wouldn't leave her. While Kyoko's characters usually took possession of her during acting, after the director yelled 'CUT!', she would happily and easily become Mogami Kyoko again. But this time, Kyoko found it very hard to wriggle out of Reina's character... or so she thought. Because, never before had she had any problems with any actor or actress interacting with Tsuruga-san. But this time, she'd had to stop herself from strangling the other actress a couple of times. Not to mention the curse dolls she found herself making (and poking with needles), of Oshida-san.

It was extremely confusing... while the feelings seemed to be Reina's, the reactions were all Kyoko's. Why was it like that? Why did she feel irritated when Oshida-san touched Ren?... Why did it make her want to pull the woman away whenever she flirted with him? Why did she feel almost sick with tension whenever Ren had to film romantic scenes with Oshida-san? Didn't she trust him to be professional? Wasn't she professional enough to understand that as an actor he would have to give every job his 100%? Then why did she feel the need to be the one Tsuruga-san... Ren... spoke, laughed or acted with? And why exactly did thinking of him as Tsuruga-san inside her head not fit anymore?... Why did she want to call him Ren?.. And listen to his lips forming her given name?

Till date, Kyoko had never experienced anything like that and for the life of her, she couldn't understand what the hell was going on. The feelings almost flooding inside her were a weird mix of Reina's... dare she say it?... jealousy, Setsu's protectiveness of her nii-san, Mio's anger and Natsu's determination to eliminate her competition.

Wait. What?

Did she just think of Oshida-san as competition?... For Ts-Tsuruga-san's attention... and affection?...

Oh.

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_**A/N: So that was Feelin' Green... Not as much jealousy as I'd thought I'd be able to bring out. More introspectiveness and a still unaware Kyoko. Sigh!... When is that kid going to learn that she never lost the power to love? Well, apparently, now. **_

_**Anyways, stay tuned for the next installment of the series, the color Yellow**_

_**Oh and before I forget, this series is based on the song Colourblind by Darius. I found it on some random playlist on my ipod and couldn't get this idea out of my head. **_

_**Please don't forget to review... your feedback is extremely important and wholeheartedly appreciated... **_

_**Yeah. Reviews are like Tsuruga Ren in his Armani suit. :)**_

_**Lotsa luv and cookies**_

_**MB**_


	3. Feelin' Yellow

_**A/N: Hi there!... Thank you so much for the amazing response from you guys... It was really like getting a personal visit from Ren in his Armani suit...(lovestruck sigh! I wish he was real... and I wish he was mine... but then don't we all?) I am grateful for the feedback and all the encouragement from y'all... **_

_**And before we go any further, I just wanna point out the fic structure... The first four parts, Feelin' Blue, Feelin' Green, Feelin' Yellow and Feelin' Fine, are going to be from Kyoko's POV. Or atleast, they were supposed to be, but Ren kinda snuck into the last one while I wasn't looking... he he...  
**_

_**So anyways, without any more ado, here's**_

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**Feelin' Yellow**

Mogami Kyoko was exhausted. Nothing more, nothing less... completely and utterly exhausted. She'd been on the go for almost 60 hours now, her lack of a manager literally biting her in the ass, as her filming schedule for the last three days had been absolutely brutal.

For once, the workaholic Tsuruga Ren had nothing on Mogami Kyoko, as she'd had to run from one set to the other, filming one role after another for almost the whole of three days now. First, it had been Box-R that had taken up nearly the whole of the day and night to shoot. It had been an elaborate bullying scene, involving most of the cast and while Kyoko hadn't minded it much, shooting the scenes again and again because one actor or the other didn't come up to scratch was tiresome to say the least. Which was how the shoot had overshot it's time by almost five hours, eating into her sleep time. It had been close to five in the morning when she made it back to the Darumaya. Even then, she found that she couldn't really sleep all that well, her dreams of one tall, dark haired actor keeping her restless throughout the hours.

But even the heavens were clearly not on her side when she was woken up from her exhausted slumber at around half past seven, Sawara-san asking her to come in to work a bit early that day because he had a whole bunch of new offers that he wanted to discuss with her. After that, and a hurried breakfast, Kyoko'd had to literally run to Studio 8, where Arrest Warrant was being shot.

The one bright point of the day was that all the scenes she'd had to shoot that day were scenes of her alone or Reina with other cast members. Neither Ren nor Oshida-san had any scenes to shoot with her that morning... and even if they did, Kyoko might just've refused. There was no way she could handle being around her sempai that morning, not after the disturbing revelation that she'd had two night's previously. Oshida-san was just a regular pain in the neck for some reason and Kyoko was thankful to whoever was watching after her from above, that she didn't have to spend half the day making nice with that woman. While Kyoko wasn't usually this caustic, even in her thoughts, her lack of sleep coupled with the disturbed emotional state she was in, were making her just a bit abrasive.

After that was again another marathon Box-R shoot that lasted well into the night. And like clockwork, she'd had to report to Sawara-san in the morning again, with literally no sleep due to more disturbing dreams of Ren, this time, given the assignment of delivering a package for him to the production department, all the way across the huge complex that housed LME. Then, she'd been invited to guest star on a talk show, to promote Box-R at the KWVU station, an interview which had over shot it's time by almost two hours because one of the other guest stars had kept finding problems with the set, the studio, the services and her costume.

After her portion of the shoot wrapped up in the afternoon, she'd gone back to LME for Love Me work. And she was back to cursing whoever it was that was having so much fun with making her life this miserable. Her current Love Me assignment involved de-gumming the floors in the corridor outside the audition rooms... again. After another back breaking four and a half hours, the floor was sparkling, but unwaxed this time... she'd learned her lesson after all.

Even as she surveyed her work with a satisfied grin, Kyoko could feel her body on the verge of shutdown due to lack of sleep and physical exhaustion. She was still trying to put back all the cleaning supplies she'd borrowed when her seventeen year old body gave out and she slumped down on the floor next to the maintenance closet, still clad in her eye burningly pink overalls. It was an out of the way corridor at the LME building and if someone hadn't been looking for her, she wouldn't probably have been found out till she woke again, which might've very well been a coupla of days later, the way she was feeling at the moment.

As luck would have it, someone was indeed searching for her and finding her slumped form next to the maintenance closet gave that person the shock of their lives. For a second, the man had thought that she was sick and had passed out or had been attacked. His heart in his throat, the man hurriedly checked her vital signs and finding them all normal, heaving a sigh of relief, picked her up princess style and took her down to the comfortable couch in his office, which he'd seldom used.

Kyoko's eyes fluttered as she felt her body being moved, her eyes opening blearily to catch the silhouette of a dark haired extremely handsome man above her... the same one that had been haunting her dreams for the last couple of days. The last thing she registered in her sleepy state were the soft, deep brown eyes that spoke volumes to her heart in one glance... before everything went black.

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When Kyoko woke up, it was dark outside... and she found herself in a slightly familiar room, in a slightly familiar but infinitely comfortable bed. Sinking back into the soft pillows, the seventeen year old took a minute to compose herself before pushing the comforter away and looking down at herself. A big sigh left her with a whooshing sound when she found her body still clad in the shocking pink overalls, followed by a face burning blush at the way her thoughts had run amok. Of course Ren-sempai wouldn't have done anything other than bring her to his home and put her to bed.

Her first reaction was a healthy amount of disappointment, chased down by huge amounts of surprise and horror at her thoughts. How could she even think about Ren like that? He wasn't one of those unprincipled men... he wasn't like Shotaro.

Just the thought of the bottle blonde rock star had Kyoko shaking with suppressed anger as she stomped out of bed and made her way to the adjoining bathroom, a swarm of grudge Kyoko's floating along in her wake. Washing her face, Kyoko couldn't help pondering the extent of her faith in her sempai.

Kyoko had no doubts that if it had been Sho or any other man in Ren's position the previous night, they would've tried to take advantage or at least would've been sorely tempted to. But knowing Ren, he would've never even thought of taking advantage of her, even if he was a man, he had been given the opportunity and he might've even been tempted to. And Kyoko, for the first time in her life, wasn't sure whether she wanted to be happy about Ren's gentlemanliness. Just the thought that she might want him to behave in a less than gentlemanly fashion with her, that she might want him to think of her not as a kohai, but as a woman, was mortifying but at the same time, slightly exciting.

She'd just stepped outside the bathroom when the door to the guest bedroom opened and Ren's head peeked in. Somehow, she'd never thought of her world famous actor sempai to behave in such a normal, almost childish fashion and couldn't stop the small giggle that had escaped her at the sight of his disembodied head hanging around the doorway. The giggle however, stopped as abruptly as it had started, when she saw the expression on his face. It was unlike anything she'd ever seen before... so open and artless, so tender, almost vulnerable, his eyes were as soft as she'd ever seen them, a slight but beautifully real smile on his face. But being the consummate actor he was, that expression was wiped away in an instant, and in it's place was the regular gentleman Tsuruga Ren.

"Good evening Mogami-san... I am very happy to see you finally awake."

Ren smiled a bit, stepping into the room, but now, Kyoko knew. She'd seen that expression on his face, however short lived it had been and couldn't work out why he was hiding his real self from her. Because she was very sure, that the face she had seen just a moment ago was the real deal... not Tsuruga Ren, the gentleman, not Katsuki, not Mido Gin, not Cain Heel and certainly not BJ or any of the other assorted characters he'd played. It was the face of the man Tsuruga Ren really was, and for the life of her, Kyoko couldn't work out why in the name of heaven would he feel the need to hide his true self from her.

For reasons she couldn't really spell out, it hurt more than she'd thought it would. The fact that while he knew most of her life history, had found out most of her secrets, was a part of her everyday life now, but still didn't trust her enough to tell her anything or really make her a part of his, hurt more than she could understand.

Her recent revelation that she had feelings for the man, how deep or how lasting she didn't know yet, were an additional burden to the already heavy chains around her heart. What had thrown her completely, was the fact that he'd been such a good actor, even off camera, that she'd never figured out till now, that Tsuruga Ren was just another character he played, just another facade like the other ones.

To his credit, he'd never let the Tsuruga Ren character slip, not even when he was alone at home. But even as she thought that, the scene while they'd been practicing role play for Dark Moon came into her mind. In the kitchen, she knew that he hadn't been Katsuki then. Oh, it had been a good save, telling her that he'd wanted to scare her into understanding the dangers of coming alone to a man's house, but even then, she'd spotted the lie... because she herself had lied a couple of times to make up for the lapses in character that he'd engendered that night.

But because it was too uncomfortable to call him out on his lie, she'd let it slide, and the practice had gone on. He'd played Katsuki masterfully the next day and that little incident in the kitchen had just been stored away in both of their brains as something to never be touched upon. But now as she remembered it, Kyoko couldn't help but wonder... was that even the Tsuruga Ren personality back then? No... had it been the gentleman actor personality, he would've never lost control of the situation like that. No. That had to have been the real person who paraded as Tsuruga Ren during the day.

While she was coming to conclusions of her own, thoughts whipping about her mind like leaves in a whirlwind, she could dimly hear Ren asking her whether she was alright.

"Mogami-san... are you alright?... Is something wrong?"

Hurriedly snapping herself out of her contemplations and the boatload of revelations they had brought forth, Kyoko came back to the present in time to shake her head no in a sort of convincing manner, hoping that it would be enough for him to back off for the moment.

Ren seemed a bit hesitant to accept her answer, almost looking for a moment like he wanted to press her about the matter, but Kyoko heaved a silent sigh of relief when he finally decided that maybe now wasn't the right time to push her.

"You should probably have something to eat Mogami-san... seeing as you haven't had anything to eat for the last twenty-four hours"

"EH?"

All her thoughts, all of the things she was mentally wrestling with, stopped cold at his statement

"What do you mean twenty-four hours Re-Tsuruga-san? I definitely ate lunch today"

There was a slight look of surprise on his face before he smiled lightly, a chuckle escaping before Ren answered

"That was yesterday Mogami-san... today is Thursday. You were asleep the whole of yesterday and part of today"

"EH?"

For the life of her Kyoko couldn't have stopped the face burning blush that felt like it had taken over her whole body. It was all she could to to stop throwing herself down into a dogeza and apologize for her reckless behavior. She had in fact thoughtlessly stepped forward to snap down into one, when the feel of her sempai's practiced hand on her shoulder had stopped her. Instead of going down into the customary apologetic position, she instead chose to verbalize her feelings.

"I am so so so sorry for all the trouble I have caused R-Tsuruga-san..."

She would've gone on and on had it not been for the aforementioned hand squeezing lightly on the aforementioned shoulder stopping her. Looking up, she found his lips twisted in a small but almost excited smile... something that was completely unexpected and astonishing, given that she was trying to apologize for her thoughtlessness.

"That's twice now..." he said, almost too softly for her to hear, but it stopped her rant effectively.

"What's twice now?"

Now, it was his turn to look astonished... it seemed as if he hadn't meant to say that out loud. But he recovered quickly, smiling at her again

"It's twice now that you've stopped yourself from calling me by... calling me Ren, Mogami-san"

The silence that followed was a long and extremely uncomfortable one for Kyoko, but this time she was determined to not apologize for her indiscretion. She'd somewhere down the line started to think of him as Ren in her mind and was somehow loath to go back to thinking of him in the distant but respectful term of Tsuruga-san. And by his expression, he didn't seem too put out about it. So she took the chance and just stared at the floor, silent but with her cheeks red with embarrassment.

Had the actor found her behavior strange, he never gave a clue of it, instead smiling happily at her, inadvertently become the mass murderer of a whole battalion of grudge Kyoko's that had carelessly been floating around nearby their mistress. Shivering slightly at the reactions his genuine smile engendered inside her, Kyoko fought the urge to look up at him directly, knowing that if she did, she would well and truly be lost.

All the locks around her heart would shatter, even permanently damaging the box, ensuring the permanent annihilation of her grudges. For a moment, Kyoko was sorely tempted... now that she knew of her feelings for her sempai, even if she didn't know whether it was anywhere near the all important human feeling she'd thought she lost, Kyoko wanted to be free. She wanted to drop the chains around her heart and become the sort of person who could give and receive love freely and without inhibitions or doubts. For a second she was sorely tempted into believing that she could form such an attachment with the man in front of her.

But then common sense intruded and in her opinion, saved the day. Neither she, nor by the looks of his current situation, was her sempai ready for something like that at this moment. Both of them seemed to be emotionally compromised people, broken in different ways and both of them unwilling to open their real selves upto more emotional damage. For the first time in her life, Kyoko felt like she could truly understand another person and the motivations behind their actions.

"I would be happy if you felt comfortable enough around me to call me Ren, Mogami-san.."

"Kyoko.."

"Huh?"

"Kyoko... If I am going to be allowed to call you Ren, you should call me Kyoko..."

"Okay... Kyoko."

The smile was there for all to see on his face as he got up to go and get her something to eat.

Once he'd left the room, Kyoko felt herself returning to her previous contemplations. From her time as Setsuka Heel, Kyoko had known that there was something really disturbing and dark about Ren's past... something that tortured him to the point where he felt that he didn't deserve any sort of happiness in his life. She also knew that he'd left his family for some other reason... not the one that had tortured him so much during his portrayal of BJ. So there had to be atleast two different but equally big dark secrets this man was shouldering the burden of.

And for the first time in her life, Kyoko felt the need to help this person... For the first time, she could differentiate the real person he was, from the super star personality. Till now, she'd always seen the distant, gentleman actor personality that had drawn in everybody in Japan and beyond, but now, she could see the real person behind the Tsuruga Ren facade and she was sure that she admired him, l-liked him and respected him far too much to let him suffer something like that alone. But then, she couldn't really ask him what the problem was. And from the way she'd seen him shield his emotions in front of her not a minute ago, he didn't seem to trust her enough to tell her of his problems by himself.

So the first part of the solution to the problem she faced was to make herself someone he could trust, someone he could talk to... someone like... In a flash of inspiration, Kyoko knew what she had to do. There was only one person Ren was comfortable talking to, without any of the barriers of usual conversation in place - Bo.

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_**A/N: So there it is, another chapter done. Please don't forget to review your thoughts and ideas. They are definitely like Ren in his Armani suit... (0.0)**_

_**And I know it's not come out the way I wanted it to, but I want to know what you guys think. **_

_**I wanted a bit more than just Ren and Kyoko... a bit of the whole cast was supposed to come in and make cameo appearances... Yashiro, Kanae, Chiori, Maria and of course Lory... but it seems Ren and Kyoko wanted this chapter all to themselves. **_

_**I'll try and get the others into the next chapters... maybe a little bit of Sho and Vie Ghoul and the Bridge Rock too, who knows!  
**_

_**So yeah... The next chapter is Feelin' fine, the last one from Kyoko's POV. The next four, namely Feelin' Red, Feelin' Black, Feelin' Jaded and Feelin' Sublime are going to be in Ren's... So stay tuned and I'll be back with the next chapter in a jiffy..  
**_

_**Lotsa luv and cookies  
**_

_**MB  
**_


	4. Feelin' Fine

_**A/N: Hi there and thank you soooo much once again for the amazing feedback and encouragement. So my muse has been working overtime to produce the next chapter. Hope you guys like it as much as you seem to have, the previous ones. **_

_**To JustADreamer : **_**I was so excited to read that someone else was a fan of Extravagant Challenge. I think it was on Taiwanese TV and though I don't know the language, I managed to love the series with all my heart. And I absolutely adore Choi SiWon... he was as close to a perfect Ren (or Dun He Lian as per EC) as one could ask for. I had to stop myself from squealing like a crazy schoolgirl every time he smiled... and props for Lee DongHae too, for making a great Sho (or Bu Po Shang). Although it didn't have too much RenXKyoko and it ended far too soon, I loved it. It is a pleasure to get to know another EC fan and I hope you like this chapter too... :)**

_**To Guest : **_**Oh I just love you! I couldn't stop giggling when I read that piece of conversation supposedly between Ren and Kyoko... that was so perfectly Yashiro that I could almost see a chibi version squeeing in a manga box all by itself... So cooool!... Oh and btw, he definitely didn't make the food. Yashiro might've brought some by or something. Ren is perfect in a lot of ways but he still can't cook. :)**

_**I think that's a big enough Author's note... now we can get to the next chapter. :)**_

_**Edit Note: Thanks for the heads up on Rick's girlfriend's name Shizuhoe... I've changed it to Tina. :)  
**_

* * *

**Feelin' fine**

Today was the day. Or rather, today would be the day.

Kimagure Rock had just finished filming and Kyoko, with some nifty talk, had managed to find out enough of Ren's schedule from Yashiro-san, to know that he also had filming at the TBM studios that afternoon. So all she had to do now, was to make sure that she stayed in the chicken suit and find a way to meet Ren while he was filming there. And of course, all of this had to be done in such a manner that the actor didn't become suspicious. After all, it really wouldn't do to let him know she was the person under the Bo costume before she'd even had a chance to talk to him.

Kyoko's confidence had grown exponentially this last couple of weeks. Whether it was because she was now secure in the knowledge of her feelings for her sempai, or because she felt that maybe she hadn't really lost that all important human emotion that had led to her being put in the Love Me department, she didn't know. Maybe it was the knowledge that she had so many friends, so many people that cared enough about her to worry.

* * *

In her childhood and most of her teenage, Kyoko had never mattered enough to the people around her. She never knew her father, her mother had abandoned her at the tender age of five, never to be seen or heard from again. The Fuwas, who'd taken responsibility for her had been quite strict with their treatment of her. Though Shotaro's Oka-san had been Mogami Saena's friend, she had never really warmed up to Kyoko any more than was necessary to teach her about the running of the Ryokan. She was an unfailingly polite but distant and closed off person who, like her own Hahaoya, expected and demanded perfection in everything that was done. It was the reason behind the fame and success that the Ryokan had experienced, but it had never been the foundation of good human relationships.

Shotaro's Otou-san had been the one bright spot in the grey area that had been Kyoko's childhood. It was from him that she had learned how to cook. Fuwa Oji-san had always had a soft spot for the little girl with golden eyes and had taken her under his wing. Teaching her the ways of a traditional Japanese chef when she was barely six years old and branching out into other cuisines as she grew older, the Fuwa Taisho had taught her to love the art of cooking and the pleasure of feeding others good and nutritious food. But even he could do only so much, busy as he was with the responsibilities of running a successful Ryokan and managing a rebellious child of his own. Fuwa Oji-san was the only one who she had felt truly bad about deceiving, when she'd left Kyoto for Tokyo with Shotaro.

After that had been a whole year of slavery with the bane of her life, the bratty superstar Sho Fuwa. But the way Kyoko viewed his part in her life had changed drastically once her priorities had changed in the last couple of weeks. Till now, she had been giving him a whole lot of importance and too much control over her emotions, letting herself wide open to his insults and taunts. Till now, she hadn't understood that the only way she could get over her past was to let go of it. And somehow, in the process of discovering her lost, or not so lost feeling, she had grown as a person. She had matured enough to understand that blaming Sho for all her misfortunes would never get her where she wanted to go. Most of her actions were hers alone to blame. As he'd told her before, he'd never demanded anything from her, she'd been more than willing to enslave herself to him.

His only mistake had been to take her for granted and behaving in a bratty manner, something that she'd always known he was capable of. Now that Kyoko was able to view the past events of her life from this perspective, her hatred of the young singer, along with her revenge grudge had diminished over time. Even now, she hated the things he'd said about her, hated that he'd had the guts to steal her first kiss, hated that he still thought he had some sort of right to her... all her grudges that had survived Ren's smile assault, a truly pitiful number, were still waiting for him to fall on his face so that they and their mistress could laugh at him in a maniacal manner, but she'd somewhere along the way stopped hating him.

The understanding of her disinterest in pursuing the revenge drama with Sho, along with the knowledge that there were people around her who worried about her, who liked her for the person she was, had been an enormous injection of confidence to Kyoko. She'd found out the day after she'd passed out, that not only Ren, but Yashiro-san, Moko-san, Amamiya-san, Takarada shachou, Maria-chan, Sawara-san, the directors she worked with and even the Ishibashi brothers had been worried about her health. They'd all come by the next day with some reason or the other, to make sure for themselves that she was doing fine.

The love and affection she'd felt from all of them, and an extremely candid conversation with a more than angry Moko-san had opened her eyes to the fact that she wasn't some insignificant person who hadn't made an impact in other people's lives like she'd thought previously. If so many people genuinely cared about her, she couldn't really be as useless a person and a ne'er do well as she'd been told by her mother she was and always would be. Kyoko knew that Kanae might be rough and blunt about most things in life, but she definitely liked being and wanted to be Kyoko's best friend. Though she wouldn't express herself with words, Moko-san's expressions and actions did the job for her. This time, her frank and eye opening conversation with a mopey Kyoko had desired effect, making the young woman start seeing her self worth.

* * *

She hadn't changed all that much... she was still the extremely modest and hard working person she was but her inferiority complex that had been instilled by her mother and fostered mercilessly by Sho Fuwa, was now waning in it's hold on her, making her original personality shine through. This Kyoko was still as sweet, as oblivious and as hardworking and happy, but she now knew that the people around her that she considered friends and family, did indeed care about her a lot. She didn't put herself down so much nowadays, though that habit was a hard one to break.

It helped that her friends recognized the effort Kyoko was putting in and they reciprocated in a suitable manner. People were a lot freer around her with comments about her work, her friends started to not only support her, but also critique her work. The differences, while small had a huge impact on the young actress. The seventeen year old finally felt as if she was really a part of something... a part of a family. And then there was Ren, for she couldn't think of him as anything else now, much to his guilty pleasure.

Ren had been more than just a supportive sempai and a good friend. He had literally taken to bearing her burdens, making sure she was as happy as she could be. Which explained why she had been so non freakish about finding herself at his home when she woke up from her exhausted slumber two weeks back... for she had spent a lot of time, even some nights in his home and guest bedroom. The relationship between the two of them had changed subtly over time, not enough to alarm Kyoko or her delicate sensibilities before, but just enough for her to start viewing the tall, handsome actor as more than just a highly respected sempai.

* * *

But now as she trawled the halls of TBM studios, hoping to bump into the very same man, Kyoko couldn't stop some very disturbing thoughts from swirling around her mind. Involved in her recent personality reform, she had completely forgotten the main portion of what Ren had discussed with Bo before. She had completely forgotten that Ren was already in love with some high school girl, someone he thought deserved better than him. For some not so unimaginable reason, Kyoko felt as if someone had drawn a rusty dagger slowly across the surface of her heart. It pained her in more ways than she could comprehend that he was in love with someone else.

Even as she tried to get over the revelation, Kyoko couldn't help but laugh bitterly at her own chauvinism. Till now, she was determined not to fall in love and hadn't wanted anyone to fall for her, but now that she knew she had some sort of deep seated feelings for her sempai, she was feeling hurt because he loved someone else. Who knew?... maybe the girl he loved deserved him more than she did. In fact, going by Ren and his penchant for perfection, the girl he loved must be the most beautiful and the most talented person in Japan, if not the world. How could she compare to any of that? While Kyoko wasn't trying to put herself down per se, she knew that she wasn't beautiful in any way, nor did she have any sort of stellar talent, even if she was a decent or even good actress.

It was with these bleak thoughts dimming her mood, with a small army of grudges basking in the dark vibes rolling off of her, that Kyoko found herself face to face... or rather, face to chicken head, with the primary object of her aforementioned thoughts. Ren Tsuruga was back at the usual spot where he met the chicken suited er... person. And for the first time in a long time, he actually looked... not exactly happy, but relaxed. It definitely didn't look like he needed her help with something... then why was he there? Knowing that he hadn't seen her yet, Kyoko slowed her steps. Closing her eyes and taking a few deep breaths, the young actress felt herself slip into the character she'd formed for the fun loving and irreverent chicken mascot, and when she opened her eyes, she was Bo.

"Yo! Tsuruga... Long time no see"

It was an almost startled Ren that turned to face her but an instant later, Kyoko was astonished to see a genuine smile stretch across his handsome face. It wasn't something that usually came out in everybody's presence. This smile came out so rarely in fact, that Kyoko had never thought she would see it at that moment. And so unfortunately, a few more Kyoko grudges died a premature death, their dark selves literally combusting due to the brightness of his smile. Suppressing a shiver at the reaction her body wanted to give to that expression on his face, Kyoko forced herself to calm down before taking a couple of steps towards the actor.

"Hello Bo... how're you doing?... I wondered if I'd be seeing you here today"

"Well of course you would've... I know just when and where I am supposed to be. So how's everything going? Confessed to the girl yet?... or are you still..."

Here, Bo had to stop for a bit and snicker to herself before she continued

"... too chicken?"

Bo couldn't restrain herself anymore and was in the throes of laughter, making Ren roll his eyes at the chicken's bad sense of humor.

"Yeah, yeah... laugh it up. Because that was really an outstanding joke."

The chicken's laughter coming down to occasional snickers, Bo waved it's hand... er wing at him to continue, at which Ren sighed a bit

"I haven't confessed to her... yet. I... I just don't know. She's still too young... and there are things about me she should know... but I don't know how to..."

"Kami-sama man!... Are you man or mouse? When are you planning to tell this girl?... After she gets herself a boyfriend or gets married to some other guy?"

Bo knew that she had pushed some buttons she shouldn't really have, at least not this early in the conversation, but Kyoko's inherent frustration and bad mood were seeping into Bo's character, slightly disrupting the chicken's train of thought. She just wanted to know that Ren was serious about this high school girl he was supposedly in love with. Once he confessed to her, Kyoko would get rid of her feelings for him in peace, knowing that he could never l-love or even like her back that way.

However, seeing the Demon Lord preparing to surface, Bo hurriedly tried to change the subject, hoping that this time when he yanked at her head, it wouldn't come off, revealing her identity to him. She wasn't ready for that to happen... at least not yet.

"Okay, okay... forget about confessing to her for now. Tell me what it is that is stopping you from telling her though... It's not just the fact that she's a high school girl right? Because that just seems like a convenient excuse you're hiding behind man..."

Bo knew that this too, was a sketchy topic to touch upon. But right now, she didn't have anything else to go on. Besides, she wanted, no... needed to know what it was that made him so closed off to people and emotions. What it was that had made him create Tsuruga Ren. She'd half expected Ren to react either by walking away or yelling at her, but again, the infuriating man managed to surprise her. Her smiled.. it was a soft, bitter smile, but a smile nonetheless. But there was a dark, depressed aura that surrounded him, which caused a few of the braver remaining grudge Kyoko's to come out to celebrate the occasion.

"Look... if it is that difficult for you, you don't have to tell me, but you have to talk to someone about this. Someone needs to know... If you're just gonna keep it all in, it'll just fester and one day it might all just explode turning you into a serial killer or something..."

She'd meant the last line to be a joke, but found that it had just increased the depth of his depressed aura even more. Sighing to herself, Bo tried to resolve the situation but before she could say anything more, Ren spoke

"You're right. I do need to speak to someone about this... and since you asked so nicely and I know that you're not gonna go repeating this to people, I am gonna tell you. But you have to promise me that this'll stay between you and me. If I find at any point of time that anyone else knows of this, your head will be mine... okay?"

Though the lines had been delivered in a deceptively smooth voice, the cold, hard expression in his eyes and the dark emotion the last line conveyed had rocked Bo to her shoes. She found herself nodding fearfully, sealing her promise to not tell anyone else. Seemingly satisfied at that, Ren sat back and gestured the chicken to do the same

"Remember the first time I met you... I told you that I had started working when I was pretty young?"

As the chicken nodded its head, he continued

"Well, I was a different person back then... different looks, different language and a completely different attitude. I am the son of two very famous people and from childhood, everyone expected me to be perfect at everything because of who and what my parents were. I honestly tried my best for quite some time... But then I started doing small acting jobs, and the directors would expect the perfection of my father, who was a super star then, from my nine or ten year old self. I obviously couldn't do it and got mercilessly fired a whole bunch of times."

When Bo had asked him about his reasons for not confessing to the girl he liked, she hadn't really thought that it would require this sort of in depth delving into his history. But it seemed however, that she was going to have to listen to him now, no matter what, and there was nothing she could do except make the right sympathetic noises at the right time or remain silent.

"At that time, all I wanted to do was get out of my father's shadow. But that wasn't gonna happen... So by the time I became a teenager, I'd started acting out. I was the typical rebellious teenager. I did everything I could to go against everything my parents stood for... smoking, drinking, drugs, street fights, you name it, I was part of it. By the time I was fourteen, I was part of a street gang in L.A., where I made friends with this guy named Rick. He was the only one who actually cared about me. He was the one who could control me when I went into one of my rages. Back then, I was as reckless as I was daring. I was beyond caring for anything other than the fact that I wanted to be free... free of everything."

Here, she could literally feel Ren's body shaking with the suppressed tension. Wondering if it was going to get worse, Bo nodded her head slightly, encouraging for him to continue. There were only bits and pieces of the information he was giving her, that were processing at the moment. She would rewind and playback the whole conversation in her head later at night, but for now, Bo was determined to hear him out completely. She recognized that this wasn't something that was gonna happen again and again and if Ren was opening up to her, she would utilize the opportunity completely and try to help him as much as she could.

"And then.. it happened. I'd gotten into a fight with a rival group over something trivial... I wasn't aware that they were trying to take revenge on me for beating up their leader. One evening when I wasn't there, they attacked the gang I was part of. I didn't get the news till it was too late and by the time I got there, they were long gone... but they had left behind one thing. Rick's corpse... They'd mercilessly run him over with their truck, leaving him dying on the road. Which was how I found him, lying in a pool of his own blood, with his girlfriend sitting beside him, her hands coated in it. She was yelling at me... yelling that I was a murderer... that I had killed Rick..."

A shaky breath left Ren, as he tried to calm down, his emotions scattered into pieces, completely beyond his control for the moment. Bo couldn't do much more than put a sort of comforting wing on his shoulder and send a prayer to heaven that this man, this tortured soul could find its salvation... and that she could help him with it. For a minute, it looked like he was done... like he wasn't going to sy anything more. But just when Bo was foraging her brain, trying to find something to say, he spoke again... his voice sounding almost dead

"That was the turning point. I'd finally done something that couldn't be made right. I'd taken a man's life... I'd killed a friend. After I came back that night, I couldn't sleep, eat, talk or even move for literally weeks together. My parents got so worried that they contacted Lory... he's a friend of our family. He came over and brought me back to Tokyo with him... he gave me a second chance at life, complete with a new identity, a new home, new everything, provided I left my old ways and transformed into something that deserved the new life. And thus, Tsuruga Ren was born"

* * *

At the end of it, Ren lifted his head slowly, as if the simplest effort was beyond him, and looked at the chicken sitting beside him silently, his expression inscrutable

"I... I don't know what to say..."

"I know... But tell me... What girl would want to be with some one... some monster like me? If she comes to know of my reality, she will just run away. And I don't want to hurt her, to lose her trust like that"

Bo had to think for a minute. This wasn't something that could remedied in a minute. This was actually a big, dark problem that Ren would have to deal with at some point or another in his life.

"Look... aren't you losing her trust right at this moment too?... You've been lying to her about yourself. What if she liked the guy she thought you were, only to find that the real one hiding behind the mask is someone completely different? Isn't that like cheating her of her choice? Don't you think it's going to hurt her too?"

She didn't want to see Ren like this... so depressed and so down in the dumps, but by the slump of his shoulders, Bo knew that what she had said was getting through to him. That was enough for now. He was an intelligent man and could work out the rest of it by himself.

"Look man... I appreciate that you trust me enough to tell me what you did. I also wanna promise you that I will never divulge what you have told me to anybody... ever. Even under the threat of torture... scout's honor. And I think it's high time you stopped blaming yourself for something you didn't do... because hear this clearly... you. did. NOT. kill. that. man. okay? Your friend's death, while a tragedy, was not completely your fault. You weren't even there when it happened. You-"

"What do you it wasn't my fault?... Of course it was. Rick was a good guy Bo... and I killed him... He was gonna propose to Tina that night and now, she'll never get her happily ever after. I not only killed Rick, I also killed any chances of Tina having a happy life."

"Stop. Just stop it. Rick died that night. I get that... but you should understand that you didn't kill him. He got killed by those idiots from the rival gang. They should suffer for it. You did not kill him... you might've started to fight that led to the final confrontation but you weren't even there for it for Kami's sake! Why won't you understand that? You haven't killed anyone."

"How can you say that?...I..."

"Okay. Let's see. Did you beat up Rick?"

An incredulous but silent shake of the head indicating 'NO'

"Did you point a gun at his head and pull the trigger?"

Another shake of the head

"Okay.. so did you run him over with your truck?"

"N-No... but..."

"Shh... Did you hurt Rick physically in any way that night that he died?"

"No."

"So there... you didn't kill him and you didn't physically contribute to his death. He died because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I am not completely absolving you of blame here. I am just saying that while the fight you started might've gotten Rick killed, you did not kill him yourself. So stop feeling this sort of survivor's guilt. It belittles your friend's memory. Honor Rick's life by living yours to the fullest."

Ren seemed deep in thought at what the chicken had said and Bo could see his manager coming near then from the corner of her eye.

"Just... just think over what I said okay?... You'll know what to do. And please... tell the girl you like her. You of all people should know that life is short and that we should utilize all the opportunities we get..."

With that, Bo stood up and executed a perfect bow. Just then, the manager came to them and seeing Ren sitting next to a huge chicken, was staring between the star actor and the chicken curiously.

"Ah!... Yashiro-san... Good afternoon. I was just leaving... Hope you have a nice day... and Ren, think about what I said"

With another low bow, Bo got her yellow backside out of there, walking away as fast as she could before Ren or Yashiro managed to call her back. Once she was safely inside the prop room where the Bo costume was stored and where she knew no one would come looking for her, least of all Ren or Yashiro-san, Bo took off her head and became Kyoko again.

* * *

Kyoko was close to hyperventilating. She couldn't believe that just asking Ren to tell her the story behind his refusal to tell the girl he loved, as Bo, had resulted in this sort of knowledge. Now, she didn't know what to do. She'd promised him that she wouldn't tell anybody, but that in itself was a false promise because now, Ren wouldn't expect Mogami Kyoko to know about his history and she would... and did. Oh Kami! How in the name of heaven would she face him now? She'd never been very good at lying to him and the first time she went in front of him, he would know. Oh why hadn't she told him earlier?... Why hadn't she stopped him from telling her all fo this? Why was she feeling so damn guilty now?

With all of these questions and conflicting emotions circling around in her head, Kyoko didn't even notice the movements she went through to get out of the chicken mascot costume and put it away. By the time she realized what she was doing, Kyoko was back in her normal clothes (read Love Me overalls) and was already outside the studios, making her way to the Darumaya on her trusty bicycle. Of course, Sawara-san, Takarada shachou, even Ren had told her how dangerous it was to ride her bike, now that she was a famous actress, but Kyoko knew that while people might recognize her in one of her characters, they wouldn't even spare her a second glance now that she was out of it. No one except the people who worked with her knew the real, everyday face of Mogami Kyoko and for once, Kyoko was absurdly thankful for the fact.

Pedaling furiously in an effort to get as far away from the studio as she could, Kyoko found herself at the Darumaya in under fifteen minutes. Since it was already close to dinner time, Kyoko fought to keep her whirling thoughts aside for just a couple of hours more, opting to run straight from her work to the restaurant after changing out of her LME overalls. Kyoko knew that she needed to relax a bit after the emotionally trying afternoon she'd had and knew that serving people food and making small talk with them was going to be the best remedy.

* * *

And so it was almost twelve, by the time Kyoko found herself lying back on her futon, trying in vain to get her brain to stop whirling. Sighing at the knowledge that she would definitely not be getting any sleep that night, the young actress sat up and made her way to the window, staring out at the inky night sky with small diamond like stars shining from millions of miles away.

Thinking back to the evening and the conversation she'd had with Ren as Bo, Kyoko couldn't help but feel a bit proud that she'd managed to make Ren trust at least one part of her enough to tell her one of his most guarded secrets. While the knowledge that he trusted her enough to tell her made her happy, the content of the disclosure still made her ache for the young man that had been through so much. She'd always seen Ren as the sophisticated, mature man of the world till now. But after hearing him speak of his past today, Kyoko could see the hurting, lonesome young man hiding behind that worldly mask. And found herself wanting to do anything and everything she could, to make him feel better.

With what she had heard from him today, Kyoko knew that she was in the best position to understand the complex, infuriating, and captivating young man that he was... and this time, it didn't bother Kyoko all that much when she felt another of the small number of locks that still hung off of the box inside her chest loosen and fall off. Ren was going to succeed in opening all of the locks that she'd put on her heart without even being aware that he was trying, and she for one, couldn't wait for that day to come. She would set him free and he would do the same for her... And together, they might just be able to create that happily ever after that she'd heard so much about when she'd been a child. Okay... so maybe that was still a pipe dream, with the high school girl he loved still in the picture, but Kyoko was in too good a mood now to contemplate any of that.

But first, she had to figure out just how she was going to face him with the knowledge she currently held in her hands. That was going to be the first and one of the major hurdles in her journey towards freedom. But Kyoko knew that with time and effort she would traverse the distance... she would get there. After all, he was worth the effort and she had the time. So what if the situation right at the moment wasn't perfect?... she could work with it. Things would be just fine.

* * *

_**A/N: So there it is... another chapter done. Aaannd that marks the halfway point in this fic. Till now, most of it was in Kyoko's POV with little bits of Ren's POV slipping in. From now on till the end, we're going to see Ren's side of things. So stay tuned for the next chapter, which is Feelin' Red...**_

_**Oh and for the parts where Kyoko wore the Bo costume, I addressed her as Bo, because Kyoko is a method actress who literally becomes her character. Also, it is a lot less confusing for me as well as Ren, to keep track of things. **_

_**Please don't forget to review your thoughts and ideas, I would love to hear from you... **_

_**And last but definitely not the least, Thank you to all my readers, reviewers, people who put alerts and favorites on this story... I love you all!**_

_**Lotsa luv and cookies**_

_**MB**_

_**P.S. I just had to share this with you guys... I found this on some Skip Beat forum:**_

_**Come over to the Dark Side... forget cookies, We have Ren Tsuruga!**_

_**I am going over... are you? :P**_


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